Already five years ago Heineken unveiled a common global tag line (‘one brew, many counries’) which was supposed to sell its brand across borders and cultures. Now, Heineken is making a come back with a new international tag line that ‘opens your world’. The new viral campaign features 2010’s second best man a man could be after P&G’s Isaiah Mustafa and is about to reach 200.000 hits by today. This is quite remarkable as the spot has been uploaded on the 17th this month whereas the spot started to become popular only yesterday.
I believe that the fast success heavily piggybacks on previous spots such as Heineken’s Walk in Fridge and Walking Fridge. The brand has established an image as a successful repeat offender (check this recent and interesting read from Craig Daitch). In the collective brain of the online population Heineken is now associated to engaging advertising which the consumer is actively looking for. The new consumer is not a Pavlov’s dog any more that is one way educated by TV. Instead, the online consumer has turned into a cat, choosing who she wants to engage with and for how long. Still, she knows where to get the good food and comes back to it.
Online video has got the potential to leverage emotions across the world. This is why in 2005, when online video was not that potent yet, Heineken wasn’t quite successful with its international approach but now is going to open a new world in its internationally unifying marketing efforts. A great exemplary ending for the year 2010 forecasting what 2011 will be all about for international marketers.
There have been a few major trends when it comes to the content of videos ads going: The usual suspects usually were cute animals, even cuter babies, humor and discussion stirring fake videos which created plenty of buzz spreading the ads around the globe. Three ads from Thailand though seem to hint to a new trend: Emotional advertising.
You might have seen before this Pantene commercial from Thailand which tells the heartwarming story of a deaf girl which competes against an evil pianist in a music competition. It is very interesting how the product benefit of ‘shine’ is communicated in the spot. P&G’s marketers have done a tremendous job connect the spot which makes the viewer to voluntarily expose herself to the 4 minutes long commercial. The spot has been watched more than 4million time, mainly by English speakers (48%) but also by Chinese speaking (28%) users.
One of the rising stars in the same category is the insurance company Thailife. Right now, 2 older spots are trending and might reach a similar amount of views. One ad tells the sad and heartwarming story of a girl suffering from final-stage leukemia who is asked by her boyfriend to marry him. The other ad is about a mother which urges doctors to deliver her baby early so that her dying husband may hold her before he passes away.
No matter if this trend is going to continue it shows that in our globally connected world advertising is still prone to different cultural contexts. Using similar stories for the purpose of advertising would be in most of Europe culturally unacceptable. Still, most of the views originate from English speaking users (the ‘marry me video is mainly viewed by English speaking audience (70%), only 9% of the viewers are from Indonesia and 16% speak Chinese). Often, Asian societies are a very difficult terrain for Western marketers who are unaware of local customs. Rather than just learning local cultural differences for crafting effective advertising messages for local consumers, we should try to adopt the best strategies and transfer them to test them out with Western and global audiences.
Today, YouTube is more than just a streaming service for watching videos online. The video site has become a social platform where users were exchange opinions. Also, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world (after Google and before Yahoo). As a result more and more brands are trying to find creative ways in connect with their target groups and engage with their audience.
French connection, a UK based fashion retailer with stores around the globe, has found an inspiring approach morphing YouTube, which traditional has been a branding medium, to a direct response medium with direct impact on its ROI. French Connection runs a YouTube channel named ‘YouTique’, basically an online shop within YouTube. Online shoppers can browse different videos in which Louise Roe, a stylist, presents items and accessories that can be bought via the external annotation feature (only available to selected YouTube advertisers). By clicking on an item in the video the viewer gets directly taken the selected item on French Connection’s online shop. The videos also make use of internal annotations (available to everyone) which direct the user to a series of stylist videos such as ‘How to shine on a night’ out or ‘How to sparkle at a wedding.’
Major luxury brands have traditionally been hesitant to sell their items online as they want to make sure that their customers are exposed to controlled shopping experience. The value of luxury goods to the consumer is more than just the item but also the service which the consumer gets within the store when purchasing. I believe that this type of shopping format can be taken as a starting point for luxury brands which want to create a comparable in store experience online.
Recently, AXA, the French global insurance group, launched a quite innovative ad format in Belgium. The print ad displays a strange accident and invites the user to type in the URL in his Iphone and place it on the ad to find out what happened. Its a smart way to enhance traditional print advertising with a simple mobile solution.
This innovative approach to enhance traditional print advertising is quite interesting and should be replicated as it allows to communicate longer and complex messages in an more engaging way. Moreover, this format obviously should generate a longer lasting effect on recall.
On the other hand, AXA did some evident mistakes. Today, there are more Android phones than Iphones sold in Europe. Excluding the former ones is probably a bad idea. Second, a simple 2 dimensional bar-code of which the user takes a picture taking him to the landing page where the video is displayed is a way quicker solution. Apart from that: Way to go AXA! Who would have thought that insurance marketing can be that sexy?! We expect to see more like this with the ongoing dissemination of latest generation smart-phones.
Yesterday, you probably noticed that the google logo (also called “doodle”) was out of the ordinary. It consisted out of several dots, which literally exploded when the user hovered with his mouse over it. A reason or explanation was not given why google was doing that. A official hint though was given that something big is coming. As a result wild speculation started. For instance the German tech website chip.de expected the launch of a new social network, which of course was not true. A few minutes ago, the secret was finally revealed:
Google launches google instant. It is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type, allowing scanning a results page while you type.
Why is google doing that? Well, it saves time. The average user takes more than 9 seconds to enter a search term. On average google instant saves 2-5 seconds per search.
So why I am telling you this? This is a marketing blog, right? Well here comes the news which is actually interesting for you as a marketer:
Impressions for text ads on google are not what they used to be anymore.
Until now, google instant an impression was counted when the user hit enter, clicked on search or selected a prediction in the search field. Now, this is different. As soon as a user pauses for 3 seconds or longer while entering search queries an impression for an text ad will be counted. Also if a user clicks on a search results this counts instantly as an impression for all text ads on that search page.
Google expects performance metrics to fluctuate as a result of Instant and we encourage you to monitor post-launch metrics and adjust accordingly. Your quality score will not be impacted though.
Social media, internet word of mouth, video sharing portals…….all quantum-shift enablers of communication for brands. The most amazing thing to me is that big brands (like P&G’s Old Spice as outlined in Alex’s last post) and little brands have an equal shot at breaking it big.
Pepsi’s recent viral video for the Chinese market (launched on Youku – China’s YouTube) has fizzled thus far, generating about 40 views per day (1071 views over 1 month). The creative is pretty hilarious…whether you are aware the spot is playing off of the Fight Club concept or not. Apparently this spot has not yet hit Chinese TV, and I am confused as to why Pepsi so blatantly filmed this in a brand-heavy TV style 30 second spot as opposed to other viral spots which utilize unique formats and/or subtle branding. Perhaps this is a TV spot that didn’t qualify for on-air status and is being recycled online, but I doubt that given the quality of the creative. I think this spot might be an example of a viral that is a little too forced on the branding and not unique enough to explode virally without any help. Had Pepsi promoted the viral more aggressively, perhaps through paid placements on Youku and Tudou video portals to get it rolling, it might have performed better.
The second viral I want to discuss is from a little-known American agricultural chemical company that has its even lesser-known Chinese brand named Jinkela. This viral exploded for them and has averaged about 3,000 views per day (2.1 million views over 2 years), its super low budget but hilarious in a very smart way. If you take a look at the ad (in Mandarin with no English subtitles, sorry), its pretty funny even not understanding what they are saying…but if you are a Mandarin speaker the dialogue is off the richter scale in terms of humour, execution, rhyming, punning, etc. This viral worked while the Pepsi one did not because its humour is delivered in an incredibly unique way. Who the hell has ever seen a black guy, a white guy, and a Chinese guy with a Hitler mustache rhyming off puns like Bill Shakespeare while scrambling to get their hands on agricultural chemicals? Unreal. What would be very interesting to see in this case are the sales results…did Jinkela’s target market even see this thing?
Finally, the major disadvantage for small brands vs. large brands is that once you do have a viral home run on your hands, how do you maintain the awareness? Viral concepts are oftentimes one-off executions (P&G’s Old Spice has retired the Man-on-a-Horse viral already) and unless you have the coffers and skills of a P&G to use traditional media to maintain this newfound awareness level…you have to rely on praying to discover an additional effective viral vehicle or just leave it as a one time sales booster.
I am not an avid fan of P&G (which probably both results from my previous emplyoment at P&G competitor Henkel and the fact that they did offer me an internship position when I applied long time ago) but I have to admit that P&G still ist the king of marketing practices and, more importantly, seems to have the formula right in social and viral marketing.
In the very first blog post I wrote about the excellent Old Spice Commercial. Then, a few days ago I came across the following, almost ‘shocking’ headline on yahoo:
“Despite Enormous Popularity, Old Spice Guy Not Helping Sales”
Interesting. How come that a commercial with 18+ million views on YouTube, (the original YouTube video only has about 15 million, but there are 50 duplicates) 275k shares, more than 686 000 aggregated likes on facebook, massive media coverage and several related commercials (one of them with 4,5 million views) does not have a positive effect on sales? Can extremely successful viral campaigns be completely useless?
The author of the Yahoo news article refers to the website Jezebel to find explanations:
“Are the women targeted by the ads not actually the ones making body-wash-related decisions for the men in their life? Is the Old Spice brand too “old” to resuscitate, even by a shirtless hunk who personally answers his fans?”
Furthermore he adds his own five cents:
“In any case, it doesn’t take too much analysis to realize that if people are at home submitting Twitter questions to the Old Spice Guy, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re rushing out to buy Old Spice. Consumers certainly can’t smell how wonderful Mustafa smells through their computer — but they sure do like hearing him say their names.”
Most of his readers and commenters (1,4K comments, that’s probably a massive amount of readers, well in the 6 digits) most likely did not check his source.
“In the 52 weeks ended June 13, sales of the brand have dropped 7 percent according to SymphonyIRI. (That amount excludes those rung up at Walmart.)”
First of all note the time span of the sales metrics. 52 weeks, or in other words a full year. The spot, however, started to become popular with its launch on the superbowl which took place on february 2cd this year. Hence, it is simply wrong to use yearly aggregated IRI data. To make a statement one should track the sales before the superbowl and then take the monthly or bimonthly IRI reports in comparison since february vs pre-launch to find out whether there has been sales leverage.
Second, at the moment, the video still occupies the worldwide first place in the unruly viral video charts. The campaign and its effects on purchasing decisions are still not over yet. I personally would like to see the sales statistics in 7 months from now to make a qualified judgment. (What a bummer that James cannot give us some confidential P&G data…)
Third, take the buying cycle into account. Package sizes in the US are HUGE in international comparison. It will take time until all guys use up their current supply of shower gel and therefore it will take time until that is reflected in sales statistics.
Fourth, as you might know, in the US, WalMart does not sell its scanner data to the retail panel of IRI (The IRI retail panel data registers the Bar Code, Price, if there has been a promotion etc. and sells the data back to FMCG companies so that they can see what actually has been sold in the stores). This is why the sales statistics are not accessible. Nevertheless Walmart’s sales proportion of fast moving consumer goods is massive and a sale-lift there could easily offset negative developments in other retailers. The amount of units shipped from P&G’s warehouses to Walmart would give us an indication.
Finally, and this could be a reason why there could be no sales up-lift from my perspective: A lot of men still use bar soaps in the states rather than shower gel. It would be interesting to know if women who buy shower products for their beloved male partners predominantly buy bar soaps. This could render the whole campaign completely useless. I am wondering if P&G took this into account before launching the campaign.
Nevertheless, I am looking forward to come back to this topic in 7 months from now when the 52 weeks sales IRI data would actually give us some insights about the performance of the campaign (4wkly IRI data in comparison to the previous year would be more helpful though). Until then, Yahoo please check your sources and do not make pre-mature judgments.
UPDATE:
P&G and Nielsen have decided to disclose sales data, which is normally made public.
According to Nielsen data provided by Old Spice, overall sales for Old Spice body-wash products are up 27 percent in the last six months; up 55 percent in the last three months; and in the last month, with two new TV spots and the online response videos, up a whopping 107 percent. “Our business is on fire,” Moorhead says. “We’ve seen strong results over all of our portfolio. That is the reward for the great work.”
Furthermore Old Spice deodorant sales rose 30 percent since February, according to SymphonyIRI. (source: Adweek
Many people, including we Passion Capitalists, are wondering what is Apple’s success secret. For instance in 2008 Michael S. Malone, one of the US best-known technology writers tried to answer this question. He wondered:
“Why aren’t more companies as innovative as Apple? After all, it’s not as if Apple engineers are superhuman. I live just down the street, have them as neighbors, eat at the same restaurants — and trust me, they are no different from any of the other engineers around Silicon Valley. Frankly, most of the ones I know are less Apple-obsessed than the company’s customers: Most are just happy to have a job in such a successful company, enjoy being the object of envy by their peers, and do their best to stay out of Steve Jobs’ line of sight.”
Frankly, Michael Malone he has got a point. Apple employees are only human after all. Why are not more companies able to replicate Apple’s succes? To answer this paradox he came up with three explanations, favoring the last:
1. Competitors are stupid.
2. Competitors don’t want to respond.
3. The competitors are unable to respond.
If you ask me, none of them got it right. Check out this illustration which I recently found on teqnolog:
In the picture you see which people have appeared in Apple’s new product entry videos. Looking briefly at it you will realize two things: Firstly, the senior VP of Design hasn’t change his shirt and style ever since 1997. Secondly, Apple is probably sexist as only one women ever made a single appearance. We will go a little bit further, however first take a look at the “What is iPad?” and afterwards the “What is Newton?” commercials:
How come that a company which is so ” innovative” replicates the same spot used for a product, which was pretty much anything than a success, more than a decade later to announce its newest innovation? I believe that taken these things together this gives us the insight to unlock Apple’s secret success story: consistency.
Apple is not primarily innovative but simply consistent. Apple has the same VP now for more than 10 years. It uses the same way of communicating to the consumer ever since. Same tone, same look and feel, same story, same people … even the same t-shirt.
The consumer knows what to expect. As a result the fear of making a wrong purchase decision at the consumer level is reduced to zero. Consumers camp in front of Apple stores to get their hands on the newest Apple gadget. Because of Apple’s consistency in product development, level of innovation, marketing communication and even employees consumers do not fear to try out and adapt new Apple products. Consistency, along with high quality and error free products reduces the felt level of risk of the customers. There are no early adaptors needed anymore to serve as guinea pigs.
Which insights should competitors and companies which want to replicate Apple’s success with them?
Apple’s consistency stems from consistency in people (recall how long (Jony Ivey, Phil Schiller or Steve Jobs have been doing the same job). In the fast moving consumer goods industry Assistant, Junior and Brand managers change their brands every 1,5 to 2,5 years on average. If every new marketer has new and “better” idea of building an existing brand image it is quite questionable whether this will lead to a consistent brand image. I believe that brand managers should last longer on their “babies” and take ownership. The lack of broad experience and additional risk in the life of a manager must be rewarded though. Long term bonuses together with full accountability and responsibility should be put in place. Strong Passion Capital will prevent the most valuable employees from leaving. Needless to say, such radical changes are not easy to implement. Moving communication in-house could have similar effects.
Furthermore, people combining both left and right brain thinking should be leading key brands. In my opinion, another industry which got consistency right is the haute couture luxury industry. I would like to see brand managers with little Karl-Lagerfelds or John Gallianos in them being in charge long term. Everyone knows that Karl-Lagerfeld has a different style than Coco Chanel. Nevertheless the consumers still continued to adore Chanel when he took over. The reason is that Karl Lagerfeld is aware of his heritage. Brand managers and creative directors must understand that their brands are somewhat tied to their personality but more importantly also to their predecessors. Confused consumers do not lead to sustainable business results.
Finally, reduce the amount of new product launches but focus on quality rather than quantity – not only for the sake of complexity issues. Focus on real innovations which will not disappoint the ones who love your brand the most. The reason is that, those who try your innovations first are most likely your biggest fans. A disappointed early adaptor who used to be a hard-core lover of your brand is the last thing you want to see.
Check out graph below displaying importance of online WoM to Chinese consumers. Electronics are the biggest category for WoM influence, with phones topping the list. This is not surprising given the uber importance of cell phones to Chinese youth as THE status symbol purchase, social enabler, and intimate friend.
During my time with Walmart China, I remember we spent quite a lot of time looking at how males handled household purchase decisions related to electronics and cars. Its interesting to see that only one truly “female” category made the top 8 – cosmetics. (I say babies are equally loved by both males and females 🙂 ).
Learning: if you are selling electronics, cars, or babies in China, you need to have big online WoM strategy/presence.
Alexander Nick
jamesalofs
Passion Capitalists 